Java
Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in the South East Asian country of Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people in mid 2024, projected to have risen to 158 million by mid-2025, Java is the world's most populous island, home to approximately 56% of the Indonesian population while constituting only 7% of its land area. Indonesia's capital city, Jakarta, is on Java's northwestern coast.
Many of the best known events in Indonesian history took place on Java. It was the centre of powerful Hindu-Buddhist empires, the Islamic sultanates, and the core of the colonial Dutch East Indies. Java was also the center of the Indonesian struggle for independence during the 1930s and 1940s. Java dominates Indonesia politically, economically, and culturally. Four of Indonesia's eight UNESCO world heritage sites are located in Java: Ujung Kulon National Park, Borobudur Temple, Prambanan Temple, and Sangiran Early Man Site.
Java was formed by volcanic eruptions due to geologic subduction of the Australian Plate under the Sunda Plate. It is the 13th largest island in the world and the fifth largest in Indonesia by landmass, at about . A chain of volcanic mountains is the east–west spine of the island.
Four main languages are spoken on the island: Javanese, Sundanese, Madurese, and Betawi. Javanese and Sundanese are the most spoken. The ethnic groups native to the island are the Javanese in the central and eastern parts and Sundanese in the western parts. The Madurese in the Eastern salient of Java are migrants from Madura Island, while the Betawi in the capital city of Jakarta are hybrids from various ethnic groups in Indonesia. Most residents are bilingual, speaking Indonesian as their first or second language. While the majority of the people of Java are Muslim, Java's population comprises people of diverse religious beliefs, ethnicities, and cultures.
Java is divided into four administrative provinces: Banten, West Java, Central Java, and East Java, and two special regions, Jakarta and Yogyakarta.
Etymology
The origins of the name "Java" are not clear. Java could possibly have been named after the jáwa-wut plant, which was said to be common in Java during the time, and that prior to Indianization of the island had different names.The famous Indian epic, the Rāmāyaṇa, mentions an island called "Yavadvipa"—the chief of the eponymous hero Rama's army, Sugriva, leads his troops of vanara humanoid apemen to Yavadvipa in search of Rama's kidnapped consort Sita. Java was hence referred to in India by the Sanskrit name, with meaning "island" and meaning "barley", a plant for which the island was famous.
Java is also mentioned in the ancient Tamil epic Maṇimēkalai by the poet Satthanar, which states that Java had a kingdom with a capital called "Nagapuram".
Another possible source for Java's name is the word jaú, variations of which mean "beyond" or "distant".
Yet another possibility is that the word "Java" comes from Proto-Austronesian awa or yawa, meaning "home". This is similar to the words awaʻi or hawaʻi used in Polynesia, especially in Hawaiʻi.
An island called or is also mentioned in Ptolemy's 150 AD Geographia, composed during the height of the Roman Empire., the "island of barley", was also said to be rich in gold, and to have a silver city called "Argyra" located at its western end.
The late 5th century Chinese historical text Book of Song and the 7th century Book of Liang referred to Java as 闍婆. Chinese texts also reference an Indianized kingdom on Java's northern cost known as 訶陵 from 640–818 AD. The island was referred to as 闍婆 until the Yuan Dynasty, whereupon it began to be called 爪哇, the present-day name in Mandarin Chinese. In his 1451 book Yingya Shenglan, Chinese explorer Ma Huan, who accompanied the famous Admiral Zheng He on three of his Ming treasure voyages, noted that the Chinese referred to Java as 爪哇, and that it had previously been called 闍婆.
When 14th century Italian traveler Giovanni de' Marignolli returned to Europe from Asia, he claimed to have stopped at a land called "Saba" for several months, which he said had many elephants and was led by a queen, possibly Queen Gitarja ; this name "Saba" might have been his interpretation of.
9th century Persian merchant Sulaiman al-Tajir mentioned two notable islands which separated the Arabian Peninsula from China: one was the 800-farsakh long , and the other was the 400-farsakh long az-Zabaj, identified as Java.
15th century Russian merchant Afanasy Nikitin, one of the first Europeans to visit India, traveled to India in 1466 and described the land of Java, which he called шабайте.
Geography
Java lies between Sumatra to the west and Bali to the east. Borneo lies to the north, and Christmas Island is to the south. It is the world's 13th largest island. Java is surrounded by the Java Sea to the north, the Sunda Strait to the west, the Indian Ocean to the south and Bali Strait and Madura Strait in the east.Java is almost entirely of volcanic origin; it contains 38 mountains forming an east–west spine that have at one time or another been active volcanoes. There are 112 volcanoes in all, 35 of which are active. The highest volcano in Java is Mount Semeru,. The most active volcano in Java and also in Indonesia is Mount Merapi,. In total, Java has more than 150 mountains.
Java's mountains and highlands split the interior into a series of relatively isolated regions suitable for wet-rice cultivation; the rice lands of Java are among the richest in the world. Java was the first place where Indonesian coffee was grown, starting in 1699. Today, coffea arabica is grown on the Ijen Plateau by small-holders and larger plantations.
File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM De weg van Buitenzorg naar de Preanger Regentschappen TMnr 3728-429c.jpg|thumb|Parahyangan highland near Buitenzorg, 1865–1872
The area of Java is about . It is about long and up to wide. The island's longest river is the 600 km long Solo River. The river rises from its source in central Java at the Lawu volcano, then flows north and eastward to its mouth in the Java Sea near the city of Surabaya. Other major rivers are Brantas, Citarum, Cimanuk and Serayu.
The average temperature ranges from to ; average humidity is 75%. The northern coastal plains are normally hotter, averaging during the day in the dry season. The south coast is generally cooler than the north, and highland areas inland are even cooler. The wet season begins in November and ends in April. During that rain falls mostly in the afternoons and intermittently during other parts of the year. The wettest months are January and February.
West Java is wetter than East Java, and mountainous regions receive much higher rainfall. The Parahyangan highlands of West Java receive over annually, while the north coast of East Java receives annually.
Natural environment
Java is an island with a large amount of biodiversity. The natural environment of Java is tropical rainforest, with ecosystems ranging from coastal mangrove forest on the north coast, rocky coastal cliffs on the southern coast, and low-lying tropical forest to high altitude rainforest on the slopes of mountainous volcanic regions in the interior. The Javan environment and climate gradually alters from west to east; from wet and humid dense rainforest in western parts, to a dry savanna environment in the east, corresponding to the climate and rainfall in these regions.File:Java-1934 -2.jpg|thumb|Male Javan rhino shot in 1934 in West Java. Today only small numbers of Javan rhino survive in Ujung Kulon; it is the world's rarest rhino.Javan wildlife originally supported a rich biodiversity, where numbers of endemic species of flora and fauna flourished; such as the Javan rhinoceros, Javan banteng, Javan warty pig, Javan silvery gibbon, Javan lutung, Java mouse-deer, Javan rusa, and Javan leopard. With over 450 bird species and 37 endemic species including the Javan green magpie, Java sparrow, Javan hawk-eagle, and Javan peafowl, Java is a birdwatcher's paradise. There are about 130 freshwater fish species in Java. There are also several endemic amphibian species in Java, including 5 species of tree frogs.
Since ancient times, people have opened the rainforest, altered the ecosystem, shaped the landscapes and created rice paddy and terraces to support the growing population. Javan rice terraces have existed for more than a millennium and had supported ancient agricultural kingdoms. The growing human population has put severe pressure on Java's wildlife, as rainforests were diminished and confined to highland slopes or isolated peninsulas. Some of Java's endemic species are now critically endangered, with some already extinct; Java used to have Javan tigers and Javan elephants, but both have been rendered extinct. Today, several national parks exist in Java that protect the remnants of its fragile wildlife, such as Ujung Kulon, Mount Halimun-Salak, Gede Pangrango, Baluran, Meru Betiri, Bromo Tengger Semeru and Alas Purwo.
History
''Homo erectus'' presence
Fossilised remains of Homo erectus, popularly known as the "Java Man", dating back 1.3 million years were found along the banks of the Bengawan Solo River.H. erectus arrived in Eurasia approximately 1.8 million years ago, in an event considered to be the first African exodus. There is evidence that the Java population of H. erectus lived in an ever-wet forest habitat. More specifically the environment resembled a savannah, but was likely regularly inundated. The plants found at the Trinil excavation site included grass, ferns, Ficus, and Indigofera, which are typical of lowland rainforest.
H. e. soloensis was the last population of a long occupation history of the island of Java by H. erectus, beginning 1.51 to 0.93 million years ago at the Sangiran site, continuing 540 to 430 thousand years ago at the Trinil site, and finally 117 to 108 thousand years ago at Ngandong. If the date is correct for Solo Man, then they would represent a terminal population of H. erectus which sheltered in the last open-habitat refuges of East Asia before the rainforest takeover. Before the immigration of modern humans, Late Pleistocene Southeast Asia was also home to H. floresiensis endemic to the island of Flores, Indonesia, and H. luzonensis endemic to the island of Luzon, the Philippines. Genetic analysis of present-day Southeast Asian populations indicates the widespread dispersal of the Denisovans across Southeast Asia, whereupon they interbred with immigrating modern humans 45.7 and 29.8 thousand years ago. A 2021 genomic study indicates that, aside from the Denisovans, modern humans never interbred with any of these endemic human species, unless the offspring were unviable or the hybrid lineages have since died out.
Judging by the sheer number of specimens deposited at Ngandong at the same time, there may have been a sizeable population of H. e soloensis before the volcanic eruption which resulted in their interment, but population is difficult to approximate with certainty. This site is quite far from the north coast of Java Island, and it is not always easy to determine the position of the coastline in prehistoric times because of significant geographical changes.
The southern coastline and estuary of the Bengawan Solo River at that time may have been different from what it is today, due to geological factors such as sedimentation, erosion, and changes in sea level over time. Currently, the estuary of the Bengawan Solo is in the Java Sea, but in prehistoric times, the river flow and estuary location may have changed. Geological and paleogeographic studies are often used to understand these changes.